I had a good chuckle over a Quaker pastor’s declaration of some recent “good news.”

If you’ve been putting off buying a Bible until the right one comes along, you’ll be pleased to know the official God Bless The USA Bible became available this week. It includes the King James version of the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. A fellow Quaker pastor, David Kinsey, said, “Now Christian Nationalists can have in one book all the important documents they’ve never read!” The whole shebang cost only $59.99, or you can go online and read all those things for free. But then you wouldn’t have a Bible with a genuine vinyl cover embossed with an American flag, a clear violation of Section 3 of the United States flag code, but then dignity went out the window a long time ago. If you’ve been wondering when the apocalypse might start, it appears to be drawing near. 

Plain Speech with Philip Gulley

I write frequently about religious freedom and am fully on board with Gulley’s assertion that when government and religion mate, a devil is born. *

It is easy to make fun of a life-long criminal and walking national security threat hawking Bibles during Holy Week. But the larger topic is deadly serious. Christian nationalism is just one part of the Trumpian craziness, but it is key to stoking division among Americans.

Trump’s MAGA movement “is disinformation wrapped in a grift designed like propaganda to mislead and manipulate.” Historian of authoritarianism Ruth Ben-Ghiat reminds us that “propaganda is not only about getting people to believe individual falsehoods—say, that you won the 2020 election—but creating associations in people’s minds that can lead to action.” Actions like violence against judges.

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We are in a new authoritarian age when a small minority is attempting to take away the rights of the majority. They do it primarily through violence and voter suppression while wrapping themselves in the flag and religion. Heather Cox Richardson recently wrote that authoritarians manipulate the vote to purge those they do not want to have a say in our government. Authoritarians do this in spite of the overwhelming opposition to their views and policies.

A poll out today from the Associated Press/NORC showed that the vast majority of Americans agree about the importance of the fundamental principles of our democracy. Ninety-eight percent of Americans think the right to vote is extremely important, very important, or somewhat important. Only 2% think it is “not too important.” The split was similar with regard to “the right of everyone to equal protection under the law”: 98% of those polled thought it was extremely, very, or somewhat important, while only 2% thought it was not too important. 

Election deniers including many Christian nationalist tell lies, encourage violence, and fight efforts to expand the vote. They are supported by those with money who believe that lower taxes and artificially lower interest rates to spike the stock market should take precedence over democratic government. Popular Information recently identified 50 companies that have donated more than $23 million to election deniers, most despite saying they would not make those donations.

Thoughtful citizens believe these corporations are actually working against their self-interest to enrich a few at the top. Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability, thinks the corporations sending millions in PAC donations to election deniers and Christian nationalists are “putting themselves at risk.”

[T]he companies are underestimating the economic danger of undermining “the rule of law.” Instead of focusing on the preservation of “the political system that they need to be able to operate and grow,” they are engaged in “very short term” thinking.

Grift is often caught up in short term thinking.

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In her March 28th newsletter, Ben-Ghiat put Christian nationalism, voter manipulation, minority rule, corporate support, and grift into historical context. She sees it as a new form of fascism, providing a definition from Robert Paxton’s 2004 work The Anatomy of Fascism.

“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

Scholar Jason Stanley deems fascism “a political method” that can appear anytime, anywhere, if conditions are right. “This line of thought,” notes Ben-Ghiat, “risks emptying the term of its historical specificity but is essential for understanding our new authoritarian age and the risks we face in America today.”

Mussolini’s paradoxical definition of Fascism as a “revolution of reaction” is perhaps the most accurate. Fascism aims at radical change brought about by violence and backed up by law to shut down political and social emancipation and take away rights.

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The movement to take away our democracy by wrapping together the flag and religion is a revolution that Americans need to recognize and then fight at the ballot box, through the courts, and in our conversations with our fellow citizens. Philip Gulley turned to history to make this point.

After John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln and was hiding in the Virginia countryside, he wrote in his journal that Lincoln had been the cause of all of America’s troubles and that “God has made me the instrument of his punishment.” There is nothing so wicked, so fraught with abuse, as when we create cultures of crucifixion, which invariably begin with the marriage of government, violence, and religion.  

Speaking unflinching truth to corrupted power is hard work. John Lewis reminded us that hard work is worth doing.

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Representative John Lewis, June 2018

More to come . . .

DJB

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*For earlier posts on the separation of church and state see here, here, here, here, and here.